Carl Linde and His Relationship with Georges Claude: The Cooperation Between Two Independent Inventors in Cryogenics and Its Side Effects

Abstract

Carl von Linde (1842–1934) and the 28-year-younger Georges Claude (1870–1960) were the two most important applied scientist-inventors and entrepreneurs in cryogenics of the twentieth century. Both can be seen as “independent inventors”, as described by the eminent American technology historian Thomas Hughes. However, both would have preferred to be seen as scientists. Georges Claude, although he was referred to as the “French Edison” in the 1920s, sneered about the most famous of all independent inventors, Thomas Edison. He laughed about American industrialists, who handed large sums over to the inventor.